When new fishing line is purchased, it must be transferred from the supply spool to the fishing reel. It is now customary to mount the supply spool on an axle and hold it with one hand as the reel is wound with the other. During this procedure sufficient pressure must be applied to the spool to ensure proper tension on the line being loaded. Doing this manually causes inconsistent tension and spool over-run or line kinking can occur.
If line kinking occurs, the process of transfer must stop and the line straightened. If the line is completely entangled, the line must be cut free of the spool and discarded.
Efforts have been made in the past to produce rereeling devices, but these known devices are impractical to use and are restricted to certain widths of supply spool or design of fishing rod. The other devices have axle pin designs which are made for one particular width of supply spool and are not easily adaptable to any variance in either supply spool width or diameter. Other designs use a manually adjustable brake for tension control, but the braking force is applied laterally and such devices are prone to operator error in applying too much or not enough resistance to movement to the supply spool. This causes the line to be loaded on the reel too tightly, or is prone to the spool over-running, often causing line entanglement. These other known designs are often of multiple pieces which are removable and can easily be lost or are overly complicated resulting in high manufacturing costs.
Fishing line is commonly sold in a package which contains a length of fishing line on a supply spool. These supply spools are not subject to industry standards. Therefore, there is a wide variety of spool sizes, both in height and width available to the public. These varying sizes need a loading device that can compensate for such differences without extensive modification or assembly and still provide the proper amount of loading tension.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a fishing line loading device in a form which is economical and effective to use.
The fishing line loading device of the present invention in one form provides a means of transferring fishing line from a supply spool to a fishing reel while attached to a fishing rod. The invention provides a means of line transfer from a supply spool to a fishing reel with sufficient tension so that the line being transferred will not be stretched or be wound too loosely causing line kinking or entanglement.
Another object of the invention is to provide a design with which any common sized supply spool of varying diameter or width can be used. A further object of the invention is to provide a device with a minimum of removable parts and manual adjustments to enable the mounting and use of said device with one hand for the physically challenged.